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How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

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Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#11

Post by lottin »

dheera wrote: post #4

I actually am very far from addicted to my smartphone. I spend very little time trying to digest information on a 6" screen when I can wait till I get home and digest it on a 4K display and able to concentrate on my work. For me the most annoying thing is that other people expect me to be glued to my smartphone like them. They expect that I can be reachable at any hour, any minute, and always checking my messages. Pe…

Exactly, there's a lot of social pressure, but at some point you have stand up for yourself. I refuse to use skype or any of these instant messaging bullshit apps as a matter of principle.

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#12

Post by corv »

ShannonAlther wrote: post #6
corv wrote: post #5

He's absolutely right but how do you change the incentive from maximizing time spent to improving lives? I find it unlikely that ads are the only problem, after all Netflix wants people to binge just as much as Spotify does and the customers have already paid.

Netflix's incentive structure is slightly different: they want their clients to enjoy the service , so that they will be inclined to subscribe to them in the future. Spotify, on the other hand, wants to maximize time spent using the service , which in turn maximizes exposure to advertisements and thus inflates their ad revenue. For Spotify, binge use is the end goal, whereas for Netflix it is merely a consequence of…

Maybe companies could offer healthier versions of their products for a price if customer awareness rises.

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#13

Post by devmunchies »

dontreact wrote: post #2

I just wish there was a better way to measure "positive impact" on people's lives. Often the amount of time spent is used as a proxy for this, because it is much easier to measure. In order to truly accurately measure such a thing, you would need to know (or infer/predict) someone's personal goals, and their progress towards their goals. This raises concerns with privacy, but perhaps it is a level of trust that more…

The phone must have a direct link to our brain and measure our dopamine and serotonin levels. Thats the only way. As long as our hormone data is anonymized then there's no problem.

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#14

Post by bhauer »

dheera wrote: post #4

I actually am very far from addicted to my smartphone. I spend very little time trying to digest information on a 6" screen when I can wait till I get home and digest it on a 4K display and able to concentrate on my work. For me the most annoying thing is that other people expect me to be glued to my smartphone like them. They expect that I can be reachable at any hour, any minute, and always checking my messages. Pe…

> I spend very little time trying to digest information on a 6" screen when I can wait till I get home and digest it on a 4K display and able to concentrate on my work.

This is so important. Not only are larger screens better for content creation, they are better for consumption as well. Virtually everything I do on my phone is done so only because of circumstance--I am not close to my home workstation, office workstation, or laptop. If I am anywhere near my workstation, I massively prefer it to a tiny-screened phone.

If anything, I am addicted to my workstation(s). But I've been addicted to them for nearly my whole life, so I'm not too concerned.

My phone is just something that makes a noble effort to fill that gap while I'm between home and work or otherwise away from the real computers in my life. But it can only do so much with that tiny display and limited input capability.

A routine refrain in my life is: "I'll do that when I'm at my real computer."

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#15

Post by corv »

A tool I've found eye-opening is https://www.rescuetime.com which measures and graphs where you spend your time at the computer.

The Battery Usage statistics on iOS are also helpful, if not as granular.

Once people have awareness of how they spend their time it becomes easier to make an informed decision.

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#16

Post by pepve »

glibgil wrote: post #8
dheera wrote: post #4

I actually am very far from addicted to my smartphone. I spend very little time trying to digest information on a 6" screen when I can wait till I get home and digest it on a 4K display and able to concentrate on my work. For me the most annoying thing is that other people expect me to be glued to my smartphone like them. They expect that I can be reachable at any hour, any minute, and always checking my messages. Pe…

> I have a plan and I execute it according to schedule This makes no sense. The single best thing about a phone is removing friction from the last mile and last fifteen minutes of meeting friends. Checking in and fine tuning last minute details is great for friendships. If someone changes venues on you, consider that maybe it accommodated the needs of other members of the group. If someone is late, it's not a problem…

Sure, you're totally right. Except where you started your post with "This makes no sense." We all have different social requirements. For some people and in some situations it's awesome to be able to change things ad hoc, for other people and for other situations that just causes stress and discomfort.

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#17

Post by ShannonAlther »

corv wrote: post #12
ShannonAlther wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix's incentive structure is slightly different: they want their clients to enjoy the service , so that they will be inclined to subscribe to them in the future. Spotify, on the other hand, wants to maximize time spent using the service , which in turn maximizes exposure to advertisements and thus inflates their ad revenue. For Spotify, binge use is the end goal, whereas for Netflix it is merely a consequence of…

Maybe companies could offer healthier versions of their products for a price if customer awareness rises.

Well, grocery stores already do that. And it's hard to imagine what a 'healthier version' of an app, say Spotify, would look like. Unless you're suggesting they move to Netflix's business model, but that's a market niche that's already filled.

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#18

Post by TimJYoung »

This was covered in a comment already re: Netflix, but it can't be stressed enough: much of this is a consequence of free software services that need users to spend as much time as possible on the service in order to maximize ad revenue. If the software service required a subscription, then none of these issues are present. In fact, the provider company would have a fairly neutral position on usage, as long as costs are in line and the desired amount of profit is made.

It should give us pause when free software/services have a significant amount of design in common with the lottery and slot machines.

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#19

Post by corv »

ShannonAlther wrote: post #17
corv wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe companies could offer healthier versions of their products for a price if customer awareness rises.

Well, grocery stores already do that. And it's hard to imagine what a 'healthier version' of an app, say Spotify, would look like. Unless you're suggesting they move to Netflix's business model, but that's a market niche that's already filled.

I'd imagine the spectrum of software healthiness is something along the lines of:

Snapchat -> Facebook -> Reddit -> Hacker News -> BBS (Bulletin Board Systems)

Re: How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life [video]

#20

Post by dheera »

glibgil wrote: post #8
dheera wrote: post #4

I actually am very far from addicted to my smartphone. I spend very little time trying to digest information on a 6" screen when I can wait till I get home and digest it on a 4K display and able to concentrate on my work. For me the most annoying thing is that other people expect me to be glued to my smartphone like them. They expect that I can be reachable at any hour, any minute, and always checking my messages. Pe…

> I have a plan and I execute it according to schedule This makes no sense. The single best thing about a phone is removing friction from the last mile and last fifteen minutes of meeting friends. Checking in and fine tuning last minute details is great for friendships. If someone changes venues on you, consider that maybe it accommodated the needs of other members of the group. If someone is late, it's not a problem…

As another replier said, everyone has different needs.

> Checking in and fine tuning last minute details is great for friendships.

I hate this culture of "checking in". If we agree to meet at place X and time T, is it so difficult to just ... actually be there? I remember the life in the pre-smartphone days when things were just that simple.

Also, when arranging to meet at a place, I am usually specific. Like, "meet me at the train station in front of the inside entrance to Starbucks at 8:20a". That completely eliminates the need for the stupid rounds of "where are you? can you hear me?" at the actual meeting time.

> If someone changes venues on you, consider that maybe it accommodated the needs of other members of the group.

What about my needs, which are to concentrate on what I'm doing for the day instead of being glued to my smartphone worrying if the time and place has changed? What if I planned a hike for the day and am without reception? What if I'm on the way, biking or driving, and don't want to look at my phone for safety reasons? What if I'm out of battery but still running according to schedule?

In general I consider it disrespectful to change venues last minute, unless someone physically present at the old venue, or a sign is posted is there to inform people who did not see the change of venue. If it's a group of friends meeting at a restaurant that closed, is dietary-wise unsuitable, or something like that, I'd rather just gather everyone at the pre-specified venue first, and then find an alternate venue together.

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